Stamp 4 Visa

[bloomfield]

Hi all,

My wife (a non EEA national, South America) and I recently got married during the madness of Covid and last week sent in our documents accompanying the application for permission to remain in the State on the basis of marriage/civil partnership to an Irish national. Everything was sent via registered post to Dublin 2 and then this got redirected to Roscrea. (Hopefully that is usual procedure, I have emailed for clarification but no response)

My wife is currently working and allowed to do so until the end of October. We have been informed that she will be unable to work during this process but at least allowed to reside in the state with me after October.

So a couple of questions I have re the application, is there any indication of how long the process might take? (Been told 12-15 months but hoping this is just in extremely care cases) Should we receive our passports back during the process, presumably we will not be able to leave the state until the process is finished?

The process itself seems quite daunting and even though we sent in tonnes of information re our relationship/marriage, we're not confident it'll be a quick process where we can at least visit my wife's family once again. Many thanks.